5 Fun Ways to Use Facebook in Your Lesson Plans and Teaching

Collaboratively written with guest author Heather Green, a mom, freelance writer, pet lover and

the resident blogger for OnlineNursingDegrees.org.

The most popular site on the Internet can be leveraged in the classroom in engaging and useful ways. Facebook has become such a ubiquitous part of our lives that it has evolved to be much more than a way to find out what happened to that guy you had Bio with back in high school or to share pictures of your baby. Many people use Facebook to communicate and network with both friends and professional colleagues, and to learn about products, services, organizations and events.

Facebook is also a handy tool for teachers. Since so many students in High School and college are now Facebook natives, it makes sense to use the social network to connect with students and offer them a new way to learn and access learning content. If you are a teacher with a personal Facebook account, it is advised that you create a professional Facebook account (you’ll need a separate email address in order to do this), to keep your teaching related uses of tool entirely separate from your personal account. Students should consider doing the same (they could use their school email for the new account and associate their personal account with a personal email address).

4 Free Tools For Sharing Files with Students

         

          There's a better way to share files with students. Well actually, there are several better ways to share files with students. The following online storage tools use the power of the cloud to give you free storage and simple file sharing. As an added benefit, these tools translate well into real-world experience for students. It is safe to bet that at least several of your students will be exposed to these tools (or similar tools) when they enter the workforce. The following file sharing tools are free to use up to a certain limit. Each tool offers a couple gigs of free storage space that you can use to post things online and to receive documents from students. If you work primarily with text documents, presentations and spreadsheets, a few free gigs will last a long time. Without further delay, let's get to the good stuff: